The Steam Room

So there's this little gym at work.  It's small enough to be empty or almost empty a lot of the time, and there are enough windows that I don't have to think of terrifying Joyce Carol Oates stories.

They renovated it the other week and now the floors are a different color and the running machines have weird screens with the TV right on them next to your stats. Haven't figured out how to successfully change the channel yet, which leads to watching House and Olympic men's volleyball and not the Simpsons, but that's okay.

The most important change is not a change of structure or object. There's only one steam room and it connects to both the men's and the women's change rooms. It's locked one each side every other day, because I guess people sit in there naked, though the thought of kicking it the buff in the humid dark with people you have to walk past in the hallways or even email the next day is super creep, even if they are the same gender as you. It used to be locked on the women's side on Tuesdays and Thursdays, now it's open on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This has revolutionized my evening gym-going routine. Sitting in there makes me feel like I've left my body somewhere else for a while. I think it has to do with how hard it is to see through all that diffusing mist. And that breathing feels like drinking. It also gets me much closer to my goal of maximum sweatiness on my shirt, which makes me feel like I've achieved more. Maybe the key is that it's the antithesis of my overly air-conditioned desk area and thus neutralizes the typing and shivering which has occupied the many proceeding hours.